Sometimes
by Wayward-Hunter
Summary: Sometimes, things don't work out. Sometimes, they go from 'bad' to 'worse' to 'why do all the deities in the world hate me and wish me harm'. Sometimes, in situations just like this, Stiles likes to wonder how the hell his life turned into a regular season of Supernatural.
1. Once Bitten, Twice Shy

Sometimes, in situations just like this, Stiles likes to wonder how the hell his life turned into a regular season of _Supernatural_. Only, that would probably make him Dean and then the wondering turns to cursing his luck at not looking like a regular Disney princess-hunter, and that'd make Scott into _Sam_ which does fit 'cause all the two ever bitch and moan about is having a normal life.

Maybe Erika would be Ruby, in that they're both BAMFs. Everything else is ignored. Would that make Peter into Crowley?

Oh! Oh _my Chuck_ that would mean that Derek would be _Castiel_.

It would be important, at this point of Stiles' self-narrative and musings, to point out that this would most likely be a bloody-Dean episode, hence why the teen himself is sitting against a dumpster in the alley beside a diner. The damn demon-vampire _thing_ that had assailed him was probably long gone after realizing that Stiles was more fight than he was worth.

After, of course, breaking Stiles' phone under it's pretty little heels. The bastard.

Anyway, Stiles is pretty broken at the moment, sitting against the slick-brick wall, head throbbing, legs numb and left arm still with crippling agony.

He always knew he would die this way. He just mourns the fallen pie three feet away.

Stiles isn't morose or pragmatic. He has half the pack filling out that role and Derek Hale personifying it, a-thank-you; Stiles is the _realistic_ guy. While Scott and Isaac can chirp about the cup being half full and the rest of the pack will say it's half empty, Stiles will smack them all in the back of the head and tell them not to leave the dishes out.

See? He's a realist. He's… he's, er—

He's probably dying, isn't he?

They, the pack, the Wolf-Hunters-Human-Witch combo (Stiles told them to work on a team name and he sure as hell isn't calling them the Jacksons, that's just a new level of douche-nozzle right there) had taken down a nest of vampires barely three weeks earlier. A month before that, they had taken down a skin-walker and performed a few exorcisms.

Stiles still likes to entertain the idea that he's living in a really clichéd TV show for teenagers. He likes to call this new chapter in his life _Supernatural_-lite. You know, hunting monsters, passing tests. The Teen Wolf business. It'd be so much smoother if all of the creatures that pass by through their little dinky California town weren't always trying to rattle Stiles' brain and looking for a nice slice of Stilinski.

Nurse McCall told Stiles that he'd probably sustained enough concussions to take down Cthulhu. Stiles likes to think that he's had enough brain damage to require wearing a helmet 24/7 but, apparently, that's suspicious and _stupid._

Say that to the brains trying to ooze out of his temples.

He'd like to think he's above passing out and dying in an alleyway but there's no room for a luxury hotel when he can't stand and half his blood is staining his shirt already. He'd cry out for help but all of his energy is seeping out of his body in a crimson sludge.

He'd dying and all Stiles can think about is how his last thoughts are of Derek in a nice, tight fitting suit, a trench-coat, a backwards blue tie and a tilted head, asking Stiles if he's okay; Derek shaking him while telling him to stay awake, _don't close your eyes, Stiles! Dammit, Scott! Scott!_

"—hurts." Stiles grounds out. "Fucking… ass-butt…"

And then the daydream fades into darkness, the residual red glow of Derek's alpha eyes the final color to be swallowed by the pitch obscurity of unconsciousness.

The thing about going unconscious is that it is nothing like sleep. This is restless darkness, and your eyes flitter beneath closed lids, and your mouth wants to open and let out a mutter while your body is numb and heavy and there's no one that can wake you, not here, because you're so far under and the lake has frozen over and there's nothing heavy enough to pull you through the ice to the world of the living so you stay there, suspended.

You stay here, waiting.

Stiles has had a few run-ins with the mistress known as Unconsciousness, or as the French call this unholy, wretched _mademoiselle_, "évanouissement". If he was Lydia he'd name her in French but seeing as he is sadly lacking in flawless strawberry-blonde locks, he can only name the Bitch in French. (Besides, if he _was_ Lydia he would probably never be in such close terms with Unconsciousness, seeing as he could set the damn vampires on fire or hex them into thinking they were unicorns or something.)

His body aches. Stiles can hear voices through the thick, cotton-in-his-ears haze, someone familiar and angry and another voice, optimistic and stupid. Stiles wants to respond, wants to soothe the worry he can feel in the air because it's damn near suffocating, it's so potent and pungent in the air he's _drowning in it._

And that's around the time Stiles gasps into lucidness, shooting up in bed with harsh gasps of air.

"I can taste it." Stiles says and, hey, the room shouldn't be spinning like that, right? Derek's startled expression whirls in his vision, followed by the sound Stiles has called a whimper and visualizes with Scott's puppy-eyes. "I can taste it in the air, in the-the-" Shit, those black spots are getting a little bothersome. Maybe he should, Stiles should probably lie back down.

Maybe things will make more sense then.

"Stiles, sweetie, you need to breathe," coos a voice from somewhere in the near vicinity because Stiles knows now that he's in his room. It's familiar and he can almost taste the intelligence on his palate, like rich dark chocolate and warm coffee; it reminds him of the rich, earthy smell of old books, the tomes so archaic and beautiful to behold tangled with something sweet at the back of his tongue.

"Right." Stiles mutters because it's about damn time he responds and fills the silence. "Yeah, lying down. Reclining. I am no longer in a non-horizontal position."

"Now, Stiles, sweetums, darling, I need you to tell me what happened," the choco-book-girl soothes and Stiles takes a deep breath, almost chokes on the way it tangles in his throat; so damn delicious, what _is_ that smell, that taste in the air.

It smells like pine and dirt right after a storm, like cherries and strawberries and leather and pancakes and mornings and evenings and—

"Stiles!" Someone shouts and he hadn't known, had _no idea_ that he had started to surge forward to find this scent, this _taste_ that was dancing on his tongue, an olfactory illusion. They're pressing him onto the mattress and he feels the residual pain of claws digging into his shoulders.

"Shit, his eyes—" Scott squawks from beside Stiles' thrashing form.

"Stiles, stop _fighting us!_" Derek growls, right in Stiles' face, in his space, and the smell is so much more potent now, it's surrounding him in its lustful grasp and, god, Stiles _wants_, he _wants _ so _badly_ it physically hurts.

That's when Choco-Book Girl throws something in both their faces, like gold-glitter-dust and nothing smells anymore, everything is fading away, the tastes and the smells until he is simply Stiles, laying in his bed with an Alpha-Sourwolf straddling his hips (and if Stiles wasn't seriously on the precipice of pissing himself this situation would be completely different but, alas, Unconsciousness was in cahoots with Fate and they were both on the "screw Stiles Stilinski" ship which was like the pre-iceberg Titanic: unsinkable).

Of course, non-cracked-out Stiles only means that regular old Stiles is back.

"What the hell just happened and why has Lydia just confetti'd us with _the herpes of the craft world_?" Stiles bites out in one breath, startling Derek if the owlish expression on the Alpha's face is anything to go by.

"Stiles!" Scott gasps and then there's a mound of sniveling, snot-and-tears smeared Scott rubbing his face against Stiles like a _kitten_ and when the hell did werewolves downgrade?

Still, the look on Derek's face when Scott all but shoved him out of the way was priceless. A mixture of annoyed and something akin to "oh shi—". It was beautiful. If Stiles could move his arms he'd raise a paper marked "9.5".

"I threw a combination of vinegar, nutmeg, powdered bulrush, a few other spices and a nullifying charm." Lydia pipes up from the foot of the bed, making room for Derek as the grumpy werewolf rises from Stiles' bed. "It's more or less a 'keep it in your pants' and smell annul-er in one." The witch picks at her nail bed. "But enough about my _glitter herpes_," Lydia looks straight at Stiles, sardonically amused. "Let's talk about _you_."

Stiles gulps.

"What were you doing out?" Lydia asks and Stiles sighs.

"I was going to get some groceries-"

"**Next**," Lydia interrupts with a beautiful, terrifying shark-like smile. "What attacked you?"

"Vampire," Stiles sighs as his head slumps back onto his pillow, "from the last nest."

The silence that ensues is equally awkward and frightening. And, see, the problem here is that they know something is up; Stiles can't simmer in silence and then memories from the attack, straight from the slamming of his head into the wall to the breaking of his arm and then the stabbing of his leg with pretty vampire-manicured claws. With it comes the extra startling revelation that _he isn't injured anymore_.

"Guys," Stiles starts, swallows, takes a deep breath and waits. Scott stiffens and Stiles feels the muscle twitch where his childhood friend is pressed tightly against his side. Derek lets out a low growl from beside the bed and Lydia remains resolutely silent. "Guys, what," a pause; swallow. Stiles licks his lips, incredibly parched and so very _hungry_, "what the hell happened to me?"


	2. History is a Bitch

**Chapter Two: History is a bitch and honey, you're not doing any good quoting Aristotle**

There's probably something important that must be pointed out before anyone answers Stiles ambiguous question.

Stiles was never, under any definition of the word, normal. He had once looked it up on three dozen text citations and twice in an online urban dictionary and figured that, yes, he was not normal. _Eccentric_ was putting things a little too-lightly.

Something along the lines of _psychotic_ might sound too mean but "if the shoe fits then wear it" and Stiles doesn't like to walk around in socks. So maybe he's a little bit insane; I mean, _hello_, teenager drags his best friend to hunt _half a body in the scary woods?_ Molotov cocktails, anyone?

He faced down psychopaths, alphas, omegas and so much personified mythology before graduating that it's _sad_. Or is it _funny_? The line blurs a lot.

"We aren't exactly sure what you are right now, Stiles." Derek answers and, hello, Stiles _had _asked a question. Sure it was almost five minutes earlier but that didn't matter because he had an answer. Well, no he didn't have an answer and everything was confusing and nothing _hurt_ mostly, Stiles believed, was because his body was probably dead and this was all some elaborate dream.

Inception was a great movie. Was DiCaprio dreaming or was that real life? Stiles can bet that at the end of this story he'll wake up in a hospital. Maybe this whole thing is a dream? But what if it's real life and—

"You were dying," Scott whines pitifully, his face still shoved against Stiles' neck. "And we couldn't get you to wake up so Derek _bit you-_"

"Derek. Bit. Me." Stiles repeats and, woah, who knew he could sound so emotionless? He should probably call up Erika and ask her to be his Doctor, that was _Cyberman_ good. "He—and no one thought to check my wounds? Was it suddenly like 'oh no, there's blood how will the silly'," Stiles' voice is starting to get lower, throatier, "little. Human. Survive?" Stiles' eyes flash a fiery orange, like the purest flame and Scott jumps out of the bed, whimpering, face contorting into his were-features. "No. Now tell me, what the hell am I."

It's not a question. The room rises a few degrees in temperature. Stiles glares straight at Derek, eyes flickering between a deep orange to a heavy crimson.

"We don't know what you are," Lydia answers instead. "You should be a wolf but the vamp got you fairly well. You weren't bitten but I suspect some of his blood may have ended up on an open wound." Lydia's features harden into something scary, something _beautiful_. "So calm down, lie down and shut up so we can figure out what is going on and what to do now."

Stiles growls, something dark and unrestrained from deep in his chest, but listens. He lies down across the blankets once more, regulating his breathing.

"I'm sorry," Stiles croaks out at last, closing his eyes and presses his palm against his icy cold forehead, "I don't usually fly off the handle like that. I-sleep. I need some sleep." He whispers and turns in his bed, facing the peeling paint of the wall. He can _feel_ the heat that's most likely Scott leave the room with a low whine. The Lydia and Derek heat and smell signatures just sort of… linger for a moment. "Please," Stiles whispers, feeling so miserable and pitiful that it almost physically hurts.

The Chocolate-Lydia-inferno walks away hesitantly.

Good. One down, one to go, Stiles thinks bitterly, curling into himself under the covers.

"You, you haven't actually turned." Derek's voice is low but flippant, burning Stiles' blood with ire and fury. "You've been out for three days and we weren't, we didn't know if you were going to wake up or not." There's a breadth of silence until Derek continues and Stiles can't help but hate him a little more because of it. "You never, how vampires turn, they literally die. Within 12 hours they just throw up their insides, all of the processes that they won't need when they _die_ and come back and you never, there was no way we would know. We smelled something off but you were attacked and the pack just figured it was your attackers smell and then three days (_three days, Stiles_) you didn't wake up and the smell got stronger and you-"

"I'm a _freak_." Stiles mumbles and Derek growls.

"You're in between phases. Your body is human and living but your wolf is staving off the change." Derek huffs out a breath and Stiles can hear him run a hand through his hair. "We don't know what will happen if your wolf can't fight off the change. There might have been something about it in the Beastiary but-"

"Out." Stiles breathes and Derek bristles from across the room. "Fuck you, this is _not _open for discussion. Whisper another word and I will _honestly rip your fucking throat out with my teeth_; you're not bringing this up right _now_ I am fucking _dying_ for christ's sake and you're standing there telling me that-" Stiles can feel his mouth fill with saliva and the bitter aftertaste of blood; his jaw aches and tingles as his teeth, _jesus fuck_, his _canines_ abortively try to elongate.

"The Beastiary, the Alphas, hell, _Allison _, _Erika and Boyd,_" Stiles lists off, going over his mental checklist of 'Shit I will stab people in the eye socket when mentioned in my presence', "I swear I will fucking jump out the window or run through the woods until I actually die if you mention _any of that _you sack of shit, I kid you not."

"Stiles, eventually you're going to have to talk"

And, fuck fuck _fuck_ there's only so much shit a person can take in a day, alright? And Stiles is still a quasi-human on the verge of fucking _dying_ to become a vampire and is only still alive because, technically, he's a mother fucking _werewolf. _If anyone has the right to flip their shit and snap, well, it's Stiles.

It's been three years. He has the right to let loose. Hell, he's long overdue that right, anyway.

"How about _I am not fucking pack so you don't order me around._" Shit, Stiles knows he's doing this weird growling thing deep in his chest and somewhere in the background of his mind he can feel whining, his wolf _making itself present for the first time tonight, woah_ and he's throwing off the blankets that were cocooning his body in warmth and lethargy. Derek, to his own credit, doesn't flinch when Stiles stands at the foot of the bed, not even three feet away.

Stiles is shirtless, a little to his chagrin because he knows there are some things wolfy-Wolverine-healing powers can't fix and those are scars. Scars, well, Stiles has a few, of course. The lacerations Derek tries to pointedly not look at but totally does because, frankly, they're hideous and outrageously long, travel from Stiles' mid-ribs to under the hem of his loose sweatpants. They never healed right and tend to throb when Stiles is on one of his "shit-I'm going-to-fucking-die-tonight-and-in-the-creepy-ass-woods-no-less" runs.

"It's been three years, Derek. Three. You disowned me, Allison left pack not soon after; the Beastiary is _gone._" Stiles can't help but sound more bitter about the latter than the former. He thinks he should feel even a little guilty but, instead, feels guilty that he doesn't. That year had ended in as eloquently as a train wreck. "Erika hasn't even fully recovered and neither has Boyd, but you wouldn't know that, would you? With your head so far shoved up your ass, you never noticed that they still need their fucking alpha. Peter fucking massacred a dozen people, left so many orphaned and the whole city in disarray and you know who had to pick everything up after all the _Werewolf Games?_" Stiles' eyes don't flicker anymore and remain that amber color, so close to the Alpha's that Derek can make out the orange and gold wisps of something ethereal, something like _intent_ in the iris.

"I did. I had to come in with all the shit I had weighing me down to face a fucking pack of Alphas. Me. A lonely human whose best friend didn't want him, whose only _home_ had abandoned and who was suffering from so much loss no one had even dared to speak my name on the streets or at school. Which, may I add, I still have to attend in absolute solitude because you were a bitter ass hole that took my help, my _fucking sacrifices_ and spat on them." Stiles can taste his own blood as his canines grow, pressing into his lip but never breaking the skin. It feels like his skin is on fire but it's controlled, like a part of him.

It feels good.

It feels right.

"So don't you dare stand there and try to talk to me about the Beastiery, you don't even know how long that was my only _fucking_ _companion_, especially when Allison would leave me for 'pack things' she wasn't even a part of but actually was. Yes, I know about it, stop giving me that stupid look." Stiles closes his eyes and opens them, looking about the room to distract him from Derek's stupidly nauseating, _delicious_ scent. "Don't talk to me as if you have the right to order me to. You lost that right, hell, you gave it away. Now, get the fuck out of my house because I do not want you here. So you bit me, good on you. Wouldn't be the first time you turned someone, now get out. I don't need you. I may have needed you three years ago. Hell, I might have needed you a year ago but I sure as hell don't need you now."

"So you wanted me to talk. Guess what, Derek? That isn't even the tip of the iceburg. Now, turn around and get out and don't even fucking dare to visit _out of the goodness of your heart_ because I don't give half a fuck about your guilt or whatever stupid, emotionally stunted excuse you may make. I'm not mindless and sure as hell am not weak or fragile." Stiles turns away and crawls across his bed to curl up in his previous position. "I don't need your help, or your fucking commentary. I don't want to talk to you. In fact, I kind of feel like keeling over and throwing up my internal organs but, alas, here we are and we can never get what we want."

"Stiles, what if something happens between your transitions? What if you… you don't change, and you die?" Derek whispers, the leather of his jacket insanely loud from a distance.

"I've dealt with these things before, Hale." Stiles responds, willing his teeth to regress because _fuck_ he's getting hungry and that's just eight levels of wrong. "And if I die, well, isn't that just the luck of the draw? To lose everything within four years; that's not even irony. Poetic justice? Maybe. Personally, I think God just really hates all comic book superheroes and is hell-bent on making them and their fans suffer. Seriously, if I had known this as a child I would have picked up on a different fandom or something."

Stiles peeks over his shoulder at a stock-still Derek.

It was all fine and dandy until Derek had to open his mouth. It was so much easier to ignore the gulf of bad blood (oh look, double entendre!) and history between them if he just kept his mouth shut and stood there looking pretty. Or Broody. Or whatever-the-hell in that leather jacket and haunted eyes, as if he hadn't slept in three days. Or concerned.

Huh, that last one was actually new.

But, Stiles is mad, and bitter, and depressed because seriously. What. The fuck.

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire." Stiles thinks but maybe it's actually Derek speaking because the voice in his head sounds a little dick-ish and a lot gravelly.

"I'm surprised you're still here," Stiles grinds out as he closes his eyes, tries to will away everything that's happened or let it sink in because it feels like he might be on the verge of a panic attack and it _can_ happen, he's seen Erika seize before and after he wolf-bite beta-ness. "Didn't know being a wolf meant no manners," Stiles scoffs, "Just, get out. Smell me, smell my house and realize that I'm seriously not kidding. Lydia, I can handle. Scott too, sometimes, when he's not being a snot monster and using me as a tissue."

Stiles hears the leather of Derek's jacket moving towards the door and by the time he's finished his little ramble the door opens and Scott and Lydia scurry away. Scott must have heard the whole thing and Lydia isn't an idiot, she knows about Stiles and his inability to openly be emotional to undeserving assholes.

There's silence, for a moment, and hushed whispers Stiles can't make out from across the door. His Wolfy senses must not be kicking in yet and he feels slightly relieved and alarmed at once.

Breathing in, he can taste his own agony, the lies that, on his tongue and lips, were truth and harsh but were broken and untrue. He hopes that it's the Vamp thing that's allowing him to taste these things in the air and not wolf-related.

But Stiles is the realist.

This cup doesn't even have water.

This cup is fucking _broken_.


	3. I Have Lived This Life A Thousand Times

**Chapter Three: I've lived this life a thousand times (but it has never come to this before)**

Nightmares are a tricky thing. If Stiles was Sigmund Freud, which, _**ew**_, hell-to-the-fuck-_no_ because what kind of a dude sits around sniffing cocaine and comes up with things like an Oedipus complex? Anyway, if Stiles was into the whole psychoanalyzing of dreams then he'd wake up to a soft-padded room and a strait jacket. No, Stiles kind of knows that these nightmares aren't really grotesque dreams of macabre and horror.

These are much worse. These? These are fucking _memories_.

There's the Alpha twins, growling at him over Erica's bloody and still healing body, eyes redder than the crimson oozing from his pack mate's massive wounds.

Then there's the Alpha female, Alpha-of-Alpha's, with her teeth bared and her eyes bleeding, claws clenched around Boyd's throat.

Then there's his father, hacking and bleeding on the sidewalk, just outside of their home.

There are wisps of flames scorching his clothes, licking at his skin and brushing against his face. Someone is holding him back, even as he shouts that his father is still in there. They pull him back, the image of black arms, some bloody and others just too dark to see, wrap around his torso, his own arms, all pulling and dragging a frantic Stiles away into the shadows.

The alpha stands before the pack. He spits out curses as his underlings all whine. A room away, two of the pack lay unconscious, healing better with their pack around them.

The alpha looks at Stiles.

Stiles feels empty, as if his own heart has stopped beating. Icy numbness spreads through his limbs; the Alpha speaks but Stiles can't hear a thing.

Stiles is eighteen when he's kicked out of the pack for endangering the pack and going against the Alpha's orders. It doesn't matter that he's homeless. It doesn't matter that he's all alone now. An Alpha's word is final; the pack doesn't fight for him. Not that they _can't_, they cower as Stiles walks out of the den. It's not that they _can't_ stand up for Stiles; they don't want to.

They hammer in another nail onto Stiles' coffin. He's stuck in the darkness and each memory that plays in his mind's eye is pulling the air from his lungs, leaving him trapped in this torture of his own making.

Erica visits Stiles a month later. He's renting a single, living off of the insurance his dad had (being sheriff and all). They talk. She cries, smiles, says she always figured it'd be Batman to come save her.

A week later, Boyd comes in. Erica is already there, curled up in Stiles' bed. Boyd doesn't say thank you but the amount of gratitude in his eyes is heartbreaking. Stiles' smile is watery when Boyd climbs onto the bed.

Lydia hasn't stopped calling him.

Two months into Pack-Exile, Erica tells him that Allison is gone and she's taken the Bestiary. Derek is livid.

Stiles can't help but think, well, maybe there's something there. Something he isn't seeing. Like a grand tapestry, a pattern that's underlying all of these situations.

He takes down a pack of vampires that have killed a whole family and bled them dry in the living room.

Lydia smirks when Stiles walks out of the abandoned warehouse with nothing more than a nod; he's soaked in dead blood, the stolen blood of the family across the street and Derek doesn't look twice at him. Erica looks like she wants to check him for wounds but Stiles just waves her off.

When he gets home he sits in the shower for an hour, way after the water drains out a diluted redish-orange.

("You don't have to be pack to fight and protect," Allison says with a smile, dropping a heavy metal box onto Stiles' beat up coffee table. "You don't need pack, Stiles. You have me."

And for a week it's enough. But Stiles is a tragedy bottled up in an eighteen year old's body. He's death and murder and anger and depression retagged as sarcasm, snark and smarts.)

When the final nail is placed on his coffin and the images stop all Stiles can think is he was waiting for his last belonging to be taken as well: his humanity.

Stiles wakes up breathing hard and sweating; his cheeks are still slick with bitter tears and the sheets are restricting. He doesn't move, though. There are sprinkles of mountain ash on his windowsill (and Stiles is glad he found a job and applied to school; the old apartment is too chock-full of memories he doesn't want anymore), there's the unmistakable stench of what he think might be _garlic_ and Stiles doesn't know if he should laugh or cry because clearly someone's been reading the classics if the ground-out tinge to the garlic is anything to go by.

Clearly someone either doesn't want him to leave or they don't want something to enter.

Thankfully it's Sunday, a day off from work and his free day from school. This means that he can lay about his bed and house and possibly find something to eat, maybe, because he's pretty famished and on the verge of eating his pillow if it doesn't stop feeling all mushy-marshmallow, pudgy tummy—

Shit.

He just, it's easy to forget that sometimes there's something wrong with thinking about eating someone when you're not exactly fully human anymore. Stiles doesn't even care that someone went against his strict orders of being left alone to stew in his own personal flavor of angst and self-deprecation but if anything it may just be someone that can help him.

Maybe someone that is willing to put him out of his misery like a rabid dog. The idea and following self-image are probably funnier than they should be but whatever, Stiles can think whatever he wants.

"Who dares meander about my most horrendous, frightening abode? My dungeon of dastardly deeds? My-"

"Stiles, you better shut the hell up!" Erika shouts from the living room and Stiles laughs. "I'm just cooking something in your kitchen, feel free to go prowl for some newborns or bloody period-"

"Erika!" Stiles groans and flops around his bed, trying to rub the image out of his eyes of used tampons and such. "Gross, dude, I don't want to picture that crap!" He hears Erika cackling as if she's in the room with him. "Ugh, how the hell do you manage to keep your senses in check, it feels like a thousand things are trying to grab my attention at once. Why can't I just diiiiiieeeee," Stiles grouses and he hears Erika's snort of laughter with a hint of worry somewhere in there. He rises from his bed and makes a noise of disgust at the sight of crusted, dried blood, grime and old sweat on his body.

"Shower, zombie-boy, and then get your fine ass into the kitchen because we're having this discussion, Boyd and Isaac are coming over and we may or may not have a surprise for you." Erika calls out and Stiles groans, knows there really is no way out of this one, and makes his way to the connected restroom.

Physically speaking, Stiles _has_ come a long way from the lanky, gangly limbed teenager he was when Scott was bitten. All the running had made him leaner, faster; after the ordeal with the Alpha's and the resulting banishment, Allison and Chris Argent had set up a strict training régime as Stiles would still be associated with Derek's pack and targeted for being human. In lieu of simmering and decaying in suffocating depression, especially after Allison left, Stiles kept on with the training, working out, running and hunting.

It gave him something to do, a purpose. Something to live for when everything else disappeared before his own eyes.

The shower is a blessing, scorching hot and cleansing. Stiles feels his muscles unwind, feels his troubles slink down his body with the dirt and grime and blood until it all seeps into the drain. He pauses, hand reaching for the soap, when he feels something stir within himself.

It's the wolf, cautiously rearing its head out of Stiles' internal alcove once again, cautious and wary and so very jumpy. Stiles sighs, closes his eyes, feels this being, this part of himself, move about, expand his senses. Stiles is pretty sure that this isn't how it was with Scott or anyone else, this sort of willing extension of senses instead of an onslaught of _toomuchnoise, toomanycolors, toomanydetails, toomanyscents._

'This is a part of me,' Stiles thinks, blocking out everything but the cascading heat and the frightened growl that passes his own lips. 'Don't fight it. Don't deny it. This is just as much a part of me as a limb or organ.'

He thinks of Scott, fighting off what he was, hating his wolf instead of embracing it. He thinks of the fear that shot through him each time Scott would glare with those golden eyes. He thinks of all the almost attacks, of bloody school busses and worried nights thinking that maybe tonight. Maybe tonight is the night Scott loses control. Maybe tonight he'll walk through the woods and get killed by his best friend. Maybe tonight he's going to have to prowl through the woods to put down his own best buddy.

Stiles whines and the sound, the low-pitched whimper reverberates through the small bathroom.

'This is a part of me. This wolf is my instincts. My feelings. Safety. Stiles.' The water is soothing, like a liquid blanket that runs down his body. Stiles turns his head to face the blast of the showerhead, eyes closed. 'The wolf does not control me. I am Stiles, and I am some weird pseudo vampire werewolf thing. I. Am. Stiles, and I am still human at heart.'

Stiles thinks about Derek, how he would growl and bare his fangs like a neanderthal. He thinks of those times they would fight and his Alpha would run out of the den, half-transformed, anchorless. More wolf than human. Stiles thinks of Peter Hale, of burnt bodies, magic and destroyed bodies. (He thinks of Lydia, mangled and bruised and sobbing and so very broken; he pictures Scott, hearing the call of his alpha, the howl of the omega. He thinks of the death and carnage; the corpses. He thinks of Laura, so beautiful and young So very _dead._ He thinks of the poor teens that were parked across the street, innocent and young and ignorant. He thinks of his dad, dying with smoke inhalation, burning, Peter Hale's face as he's engulfed by fire again, clawing at Stiles' ankle. He thinks of the Alpha's, the blood. He thinks of Erika, Isaac and Scott, and Lydia, and Jackson, and Derek, and Laura, and knows, knows deep in his heart and the heart of his wolf, the hearts that beat as one and fill with ire and compassion and protective strength that he will never, _ever_ allow himself to be lost to his wolf. )

The wolf howls, paws at the earth of Stiles' consciousness. Its head bows, the beautiful, the long extinct Armbruster's Wolf bows it's head. Stiles feels his own head bow, and the water is starting to cool.

When Stiles opens his eyes, he knows they've changed color. He doesn't know what shade they are (though he prays to whatever gods are listening that they're not omega gold, god, that'd be freakin' terrible in every way possible) but he knows that they're not the same, and he grins because at least this is one thing down, right?

He scrubs himself down with vigor and energy, washes off the lingering soap and turns off the shower. He towels himself down and walks buck naked into his room—Stiles is a firm believer that if you're in your own house, you have the right to walk in whatever state of dress or undress you want. He changes into some sweats anyway, though, with the smell of food and the removal of the ground garlic juices (well, the majority of it, Stiles can still sort of taste it in the air, along with excitement, worry and a twinge of panic) and the introduction of brighter scents, like meat and onions and bell peppers.

He can hear Erika and Boyd together, whispering amongst themselves, and Isaac humming to a song buzzing through the small portable radio on one of the small counter tops. Stiles tip-toes his way to the table and sits on the top, feels a grin spread across his lips and just watches.

Erika and Boyd are whispering over some cooking meat, the blonde's hip cocked towards the taller wolf flirtatiously. Boyd's hand is on her shoulder and she says something that has him jerking her back with a chuckle. Isaac is humming along to the radio, hips swaying to the bass as Ke$ha's autotuned chorus slips into the mix. He's pouring drinks and lost in his own little world when Stiles clears his throat.

He can feel the tension instantly, like a pair of arms wrapped around his entire body. (Residual, he thinks, simply the spontaneous recovery of old stimuli because he's in a terse situation; it's a PTSD kind of reaction, Stiles tells himself, it has nothing to do with anything, it doesn't, _it doesn't…_)

"Hey, Batman," Erika starts and her lips twitch in an aborted smile, "how you holding up?"

"Well, besides the fact that I have no idea what will happen, have had extensive emotional trauma and got my phone smashed, I feel pretty good." Stiles deadpans and Isaac snorts. The tension in the air declines and is replaced with a sense of comfort and this, this is what Stiles needs, a little of the same instead of pity or worry or _falseness_. "But I'm starving, you guys are hungry like the wolves and I heard 'surprise' before I showered and I want." Stiles grins and the trio of wolves all glance at each other nervously.

He can taste their fear, their trepidation in the air.

"Guys?" Stiles half-asks, half-groans. He really just wants to eat and google what the hell he can do but apparently his luck has gone from shit-out to "HAHAHA FILTHY PEASANT YOU SHALL SUFFER FOR BREATHING THE AIR AND BLINKING".

"Well, we may or may not have information to help you and maybe get you, if not back to normal at least wolfy, but it's the source that we're worried about." Boyd says in all frankness, but Stiles can _taste_ the anxiety, the dread.

"Source?" Stiles presses on.

"Yeah, we thought it might be too much of a coincidence but she said that she was on her way back here anyway. Says it was an urgent finding so she was on her way here," Isaac shrugs. "I don't trust her more than I'd _bite_ her, but, well, Erika…" Isaac looks over at the grimacing blonde.

"Erika, who the hell are you guys talking about?" Stiles' voice is low, feral. Erika sighs, drops her head and scampers to the door. She keeps her hand on the knob for a second before turning to look at Stiles.

"You have to understand, Stiles, I _know_ you won't accept Derek's help, and you won't bother Scott, but we're not going to abandon you. You're pack to us and we need help. We just want you to live through this, and we just want all this shit to be over for you. If there's anyone here that deserves to actually be happy, it's you." Erika looks beseechingly at Stiles. "Understand that under ordinary circumstances, I would kill her on the spot, but right now we need her, and the Beastiary."

Shit.

"Stiles," Allison gasps, tears in her eyes. She changed from the last Stiles saw her, long dark hair lopped off into a wavy sort of boy-cut, her blouses and jackets exchanged for a dirty button up white shirt and tight fitting blue jeans. Her eyes, though, they're the same, cheerfully shaped but so full of _history_. "Stiles, I can't, there's just—I'm so, so sorry for leaving but this is important, so damn important." Allison actually cries, and it's messy and awkward and Stiles doesn't really know how to react.

Part of him wants to hug her, soothe away her tears and try to calm her down. Another part wants to shout and make her know just how much her abandonment screwed with Stiles. And in the end it's just that, abandonment, because she left him alone and betrayed his trust and never sent word. Never said why.

He's saved a choice as Allison runs inside, throws herself at him and sobs, almost parallel to the night Stiles showed up on her step, smoky and reeking of death. She's almost hysterical so he puts an arm around her, lets his fingers rest on the short strands of hair against her neck.

"Stiles, they—it was planned, they wanted you, always you, it was _him, _and he's coming back, he's on his way here, and he wants revenge, wants _you_-" Allison babbles and Stiles shoots Erika a frightened look that she mirrors back. "Stiles, get out of here, you need, stay somewhere, somewhere safe, go to Derek or Scott but you need… someone… at all… times?" Allison stills, body rigid in Stiles' loose hold.

"Stiles, you..?" She hesitates and Stiles breathes in through his mouth, senses only confusion and the original panic and worry and fear but nothing else, nothing other than befuddlement towards him.

"Boyd?" Stiles calls out, meeting Allison's wide gaze.

"Yeah?"

Stiles hates this. Hates that it's going to come to this and that his life is officially a crappy soap opera, complete with reuniting ex-lovers and drama and shouting that will come. He hates that this is his life, that nothing is clean and everything is messy and he can't control a thing because he's weak. Being a werewolf-vampire thing won't ever change that.

"Call Derek, tell him to get his ass here, bring Jackson and Lydia and Scott, too." Stiles closes his eyes when Boyd pulls out his phone and starts dialing.

"Okay, now we're going to have a nice, long chat about everything." Stiles says calmly as he looks at the three still in the kitchen-dining room. "Everything. Since the start. And you," Stiles squeezes his hold on Allison to get her attention. "Who?"

"Stiles, maybe I should wait, then-" Allison stammers and Stiles squeezes her sides again.

"Please, just give me a name." Stiles whispers. Isaac moves to sit on the couch, drags Erika with him to leave the two alone.

"Stiles…" Allison whispers, pressing her forehead onto his shoulder. Stiles barely holds back a smile at the old, familiar action.

"Please" He whispers back, thumping his chin against her short hair.

"Peter Hale."

Well…

…_fuck._


	4. The Inferno

**Full Chapter Title: **The Inferno (Do not be afraid; our fate Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift)

**Summary: **

**0-000-000-0000**

"Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people"

**Story:**

Stiles doesn't feel the panic attack coming until Allison is moving from her perch on the seat at the head of the table to wave a hand in front of his vision. It's languid and slow, like her hand is caressing the water, skimming the very top layer and he's watching from below, gazing numbly at the ripples of her hand across the kitchen. His chest feels tight, and each breath he inhales and gulps is filled with the bitter, musky taste of worry and panic.

Apparently, his in-between shifting leaves Stiles with the worse panic attacks since his mother's death and his father's murder.

His breath is uneven, and each lung-full is painful, a sort of agony that burns in his compressed chest and runs up to the base of his skull were it shatters into a million shards that explode in his brain like a thousand spiders crawling through each cell to ignite his nerves on fire. His heart thumps a staccato beat against his ribs, faster and harder, ready to leap from his chest. The pain in each _ba-dump_ is another ante, another layer of torment atop his frayed and tattered mind.

There are spots darkening in his vision, like drip-drops of obscurity, hitting his sights and undulating until his vision is almost completely blotted out.

He breathes in—

_-killmekillmebreathebreathebr eathenohurtstoomuchstopbreat hebreathebreathe—_

- and it hurts to damn much, so much he can feel like his mind is getting clouded, his brain is stuffed with cotton and Allison is still talking, breathing words into the air; words he cannot see and cannot feel but knows are there, regardless.

He breathes out—

_-whynowwhyherewhatamIgoingtod othere'stoomuchtoomuchtoomuch__**toomuchtoomuch**__—_

-and there's something in the air that shifts quickly, like the silence after lightning strikes and Stiles wants to lift his head, but his chin dips lower, presses onto his chest and he can't fight the larger gulps of air that tear his chest apart. There's a rough, large hand on his necks that he distinctly infers is not Allison's and a deeper voice speaking something. His heart still races but the pain that was ratcheting up into every cell fiber is diminishing slowly until breathing is just a dull ache. His heartbeat is still thunderous, less agonizing, and the cotton in his mind is slowly but surely clearing away.

After the sound of his blood rushing through his veins stops demanding his full auditory attention, the words coming from the figure beyond Stiles' closed lids come to fruition.

"—just like that, breathe, Stiles. Follow my lead, okay? Just—_Jesus_—calm down-" It's Derek, probably, considering Scott's voice is still in a perpetual state of awkward, almost- puberty. Stiles chokes on a bark of laughter that maybe gives Derek the wrong signal because the Alpha growls low and angrily. "Get the _hell_ away, what the fuck did you even tell him!?"

"Fuck you, Derek, you don't get to-"

"-Why did you even return-"

"-Allison-"

"-Step _away_-"

"—_fine_ now, just let us all _sit_-"

There are so many voices and so many tastes and scents in the air that Stiles feels nausea, an acute sense of _toomuch_ that he felt was missing from earlier, a testament to Scott's ability to reasonably depict his shift in senses post-bite.

"Shut…. Up!" Stiles breathes and if his voice growls on the last syllable, then there's no secret of his impending and delayed change so there's one thing less on the list of "Things Stiles Will Need to Remind Everyone Of". "It's a panic attack you dipshit, not a shot of wolfsbane to the heart now move your god-damned arm or I'll rip it off," Stiles grinds out, shoving away Derek's arm. The rest of the pack is there, Derek's pack, all making a tight almost-circle a few feet away.

Allison is right beside Stiles, though, her hand on Stiles' shoulder. Derek is glaring at the offending limb as if it's made a cheap shot at his mother; Scott is half-gawking beside Lydia who looks equal parts intrigued and annoyed. Boyd, Erika and Isaac are just laying low somewhere between Derek's pack and Stiles' right side, fidgeting.

"Everyone, sit down." Stiles commands and the room suddenly fills with the sound of everyone fulfilling his order. Derek stares at Stiles, like there's something he wants to say but the Alpha takes a deep breath, nods once to himself, and takes a seat on the counter against the wall and besides the table.

Stiles, instead of sitting, quickly makes his way to his restroom, bypassing the befuddled and anxious Betas and his messy room to stand in front of the sink. He looks into his reflection and blinks once, twice, a third time before really observing himself, his still damp hair, the darkness under his eyes (a permanent characteristic for the past few years now) and the stark pallor of his skin.

He splashes warm water on his face, keeps is head bowed and remains leaning forward against the counter, hands bracing the marble surface, as the water continues to gush into the basin and down the drain.

Despite his best efforts, Stiles remembers.

It's eleven P.M on Wednesday night when Stiles realizes that it's getting late out—too late to chase after the Omega that's on the loose. The night air is starting to bite at Stiles' bare arms but he can't return for his hoodie, not when its too far out into the woods for him to find in the dark.

He looks at his phone, wondering why his father hasn't called, when Scott will start replying to his texts and if, maybe, just _someday_ he can leave this entirely behind. His father has enough of a reputation to move them to LA, if the need be. Hell, Sheriff Stilinski had offered when Stiles finally clambered down his room with red-rimmed eyes, pale skin—it was like an actual physical sickness, the disconnection from the pack.

It's getting dark. Stiles glances down at his phone again, eyebrows scrunching in confusion.

There's a single text message, apparently, as the icon at the drop-down menu reveals, from ten minutes earlier. There is no number, simply 0-000-000-0000 and Stiles absent mindedly clicks the message as he pulls into the main road.

**0-000-000-0000**

"Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people"

Stiles shivers as he locks his phone and slips it into the center cup holder. There's something off about the night, something strange, and he feels this wave of tension that's wafting through the air and slipping under his skin, like some ethereal hand is holding a blade just above the bob of his throat, waiting patiently for its cue to violently end the ceaseless living.

With another shudder, Stiles picks up his phone single-handedly and steers with the other. He unlocks the screen and goes to a new, blank message. "Something is UP 2night. Heads up. Omega not w/in the woods. Keep u posted." Stiles texts out, sending the humans and werewolves. After a second of hesitation, thumb hovering over the empty box, Stiles checks Derek's name and sends the message to them all.

He looks up into the road, a strange sense of longing and loss sinking into his bones. The whole night seems eerie, silent, and his phone remains dark with the lack of response from his pack friends acquaintances.

Until it rings.

"Al-" Stiles starts but he's cut off by the sound of huffing breaths and panic.

"Stiles—we caught sight of the Omega." Allison huffs out, and she sounds like she's running. Perking his ears and putting more attention to the sounds across the line, Stiles can hear, or _not _hear, the distinct lack of crunching leaves and snapping twigs underfoot. "He's somewhere in the city."

"So the tracks-"

"Stiles, the Omega is _Aiden_, Erika recognized the scent and not she and Boyd are holed up in the basement. _Stiles, he returned"_

Stiles' foot presses down on the break, accelerating well beyond the speed limit as Allison breathes heavily into the phone.

"That's impossible. It's impossible, I thought we burned down their den, that should have been enough for them to leave for at least a year, it hasn't been so long-" his phone chimes and vibrates with an incoming message. Stiles half curses under his breath and makes his turn to enter the residential streets. "—so he's, what, alone now? No one managed to scent Erika or Boyd?" Stiles utters into his speaker, maneuvering the phone so he can still talk to Allison and hear her while viewing the message he received.

**0-000-000-0000**

"Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the  
other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice."

Another shiver crawls down his spine. Another turn and Stiles is almost dropping his phone in his haste to get out of his baby. The sense of _wrong_ is thrumming in his veins now, almost muting Allison's voice as she tells him of another scent, so familiar and not at once. Derek is speaking in the background but Stiles is numbed to anything but the front door, hanging ajar. His hand clenches his phone tightly, and somewhere in his mind he's thinking _no no no_.

No.

He makes it to the lawn when he notices that the parked car across the street is a wreck, the blue paint dented and the glasses shattered. Even from the front door, with his dull human senses, Stiles can smell the stagnant stench of blood in the air. There's smething else, too, smoky and—

Fire.

Stiles throws open the front door and his father rushes out, coughing, hacking into the lawn. He's so blinded by fury and worry that Stiles doesn't notice the looming shadow that rushes through the rising flames in the stairwell. All he sees is—

Fire. And Smoke. A shadow that falls further than his own in the grass. Arms that pull and push, that drag his bloody and beaten father back into the inferno as another pair try to drag him out. The creature, the werewolf snaps it's jaws at Stiles as he tries to clamber up, ankle throbbing, vision swimming. He doesn't know what's happening now, what's going on, other than the fact that he has to help his father somehow.

"Before me things created were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here!" The figure cackles as it shoves Stiles back into the doorway, hauling his father's body into the living room.

"Don't! Take me!" Stiles shouts, and coughs as thick, putrid smoke fills his lungs. He can't see through the flames and the darkness of the smoke rising from his home, but Stiles hears the assailant as someone grabs him from behind and starts to haul.

"It would be a far too easy to let you die here and now… better yet, I'll let you burn… and once you've been charred… I will make you _hurt_ more… I will numb you until you lose the only treasure you have left: your humanity."

And then, from the flame, there is Peter Hale, staring at Stiles as if he set fire to his own home, as if he, himself, this petulant teen, has killed his own father. And then there was darkness.

In hindsight, Stiles thinks as he wipes his face of the droplets of water that slide down his cheeks (water, he tells himself, from the sink, even though it's off and he hasn't touched it since he first wet his face), maybe that _was_ what Peter wanted to say.

After all, Stiles was the one that put his father in danger. He, in part, killed his own father.

Stiles doesn't look at his reflection when he walks out of the restroom.


End file.
